35th anniversary of first oil in TAPS

June 20 was the 35th anniversary of first oil in the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.

Construction began on the $8 billion, 800-mile 48-inch pipeline from the North Slope to Valdez on March 27, 1975, and was completed May 31, 1977.

Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., which operates the pipeline, the Valdez Marine Terminal and the Ship Escort/Response Vessel System, SERVS, for owner companies BP Pipelines (Alaska), ConocoPhillips Transportation Alaska, ExxonMobil Pipeline Co., Unocal Pipeline Co. and Koch Alaska Pipeline Co., said in a statement that the first oil left Pump Station 1 June 20, 1977, and arrived in Valdez 38 days later, on July 28.

Tom Barrett, Alyeska president, said the “anniversary theme is 35 years of delivering excellence.” While the pipeline is an “engineering marvel,” it is the company’s “workforce who has kept oil moving for 35 years,” he said.

To date more than 16.5 billion barrels of oil have moved through the pipeline, the company said. Throughput peaked at 2.1 million barrels per day in 1988 and averaged about 590,000 bpd last year.

On Aug. 1, 1977, the ARCO Juneau became the first tanker to carry crude oil from the terminal at Valdez; more than 20,000 tankers have been loaded since. SERVS was established in July 1989 and through early June there have been 12,000 SERVS-escorted tankers.

—Petroleum News